At the End
by Geale
Summary: Here, at the very end of things, Draco is forbidden to die. Set during the battle of Hogwarts. Some Bill/Draco slash. Plenty of angst. Death themes.
**Title:** At the end

 **Summary:** Here, at the very end of things, Draco is forbidden to die.

 **Pairing:** Bill/Draco

 **Rating:** R

 **Warnings:** Some slash. Plenty of angst. Death themes.

A/N: I wrote this one a couple of years ago but never published it. So here we are.

 **At the End**

"Don't!" He wrenched his arm away. "Don't touch me!" Broken stone crumbled underfoot when he staggered backwards. Everything was falling to pieces.

"Malfoy!" The Weasley's eyes were burning through the dark rain that was slashing down from the raging sky.

"You can't stop me!" Draco shouted back, over the deafening thunder and the rumble of stone as it rolled and split around him. Over the screams. "I'll do what I bloody well like!" His voice was raw as it tore through his throat. It hurt to scream. It all hurt.

"Not another step!" _His_ voice was broken too, broken and cracked, but still sharp... but bleeding, like the world around them. "Do you hear me!?"

There were bodies everywhere but Draco did not dare to look. If he never looked, he would never know. He edged backwards, slipping on something and very nearly losing his balance. His breath barely touched his lungs.

"You can't tell me what to do!"

Weasley took one step forward, wand at the ready, but it was shaking in his hand. His long hair lay plastered against his cheeks. It hid the hideous scars and made him look almost normal. Almost.

"You're a monster!" Draco screamed over the roar of battle. "You're disgusting! Don't touch me!" Rain was filling his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He tried to blink it away but new drops always formed. "You're h- horrid!" He choked on the word, his throat twisting itself into a knot. He stumbled over a deep crack in the stone.

Dark figures, some small, some enormous were moving all around them. And the sounds. And fire, and too much green light exploding from wand tips. He had never wanted this. Never wanted it to come to this. He had been so scared.

"Don't–! Stay still!"

He could see fear in those burning eyes now. True fear. He threw a glance over his shoulder. There it was, only a couple of feet away... Something had collided with the stone bridge and cleaved it in half, and beyond the jagged edge was only darkness. It was clawing at him, sinking greedy fingers into his gut to draw him closer... towards his end, and oblivion. His wand was slipping from his grasp but he still clung to it. He thrust it out before him and aimed it at his pursuer. It was shaking too, pitifully. His borrowed wand. The Dark Lord had gifted him with it, plucked it from a broken body and told him to use it well. _Kill our foes..._

Draco blinked and stumbled. Not far now. Overhead, a great light pierced this perpetual darkness and for a horrifyingly brilliant moment Draco could see something falling heavily from one of the castle's shaking towers. There were more screams. They cut through his bones.

"Draco!" Weasley, too, took another step. "We'll find your parents!"

"They're dead!" The wind hurtled more rain into his eyes.

"You don't know that!"

He did not see. He did not _understand._ "It's over!" Draco cried, pain racing from his lips to his knees and making them buckle. He struggled to keep his balance. "It's all over!" He was so _cold_.

The stone gave way: he could feel it under his feet, and then he could not. He twisted his head around, and in the corner of his eye saw a dark figure with a Death Eater mask shoot a stream of green fire into an unprotected breast; the small body froze for a heartbeat and was then nothing but a lump of flesh and bone and torn robes on the ground. Draco fell. Overhead, there was lightning and in its own cruel way it was a glorious spectacle – the end of everything, in one last blinding explosion. He wanted to close his eyes, but could not.

The stone scraped against his knees and drew his blood from him.

Then a hand closed around his wrist. Every last trace of air was driven out of his lungs as Weasley's iron grip hauled him through the icy wind and from his last hope. Draco had no screams left but he gasped for air as he was mercilessly dragged over the quivering stone. And he fought. His insides were on fire and every muscle in his body threatening to burst. He battered Weasley with his free fist, but was too weak against this foe. Weasley was soaked through and his breathing harsh when he shoved Draco against a half-shattered statue.

"I forbid you," he panted, his voice sore, "I forbid you to kill yourself." Blood was trickling from a gash near his temple, blending with the rain. "It is _not_ over. Not yet."

Draco defiantly shook his head against the stone, not caring that it cut into the back of his head. "He'll kill you. He'll kill us all."

"He won't!" Weasley took him by the shoulders and shook him. Hard.

"Don't..." Draco had nothing left to set against him. Still, he tried. "Don't touch me..."

Weasley's eyes were wide, panicked. His hair had darkened with the rain and he was pale as a ghost. "He won't win, d'you hear me? He _won't_!"

One of his hands left Draco's shoulder and roughly cupped his cheek. Draco twisted his head to the side, his own eyes stinging and his throat so tight he could barely speak. "Don't... You're..."

Weasley's hand was cold and wet against his skin. It was cruel as it forced Draco to look into those brown eyes. Up close, through the dripping tresses of auburn hair, the deep scars shone through so clearly – as though it were the middle of the day and the sun had come out. But there was no sun here. Draco sobbed in desperation as Weasley's strong fingers held his chin immobile as the older man leaned in closer.

"You're a... you're a monster..." He broke when their lips met, his lies finding no footing. The wand that was not his slipped from his grasp but he never heard it hit the ground. Bill's mouth pressed against his, and the kiss was anguish and sorrow and fear, and home.

Draco clutched at his sodden jacket, drowning in this night of terror. He parted his lips when Bill's tongue pushed against them and he let his head fall into the palm that had moved to cup the back of his head. Bill kissed him deeply, holding him in place, letting him melt into the stone and forget... for a moment, for two, who he was. Draco's shaking fingers pushed aside the hair and traced the scars, so familiar under his trembling fingertips. And in response, Bill's teeth grazed his lips, but gently, and then the kiss deepened again. Draco no longer heard the sounds of battle, he knew nothing but his own racing heart and Bill's mouth moving against his. As everything else faded away around him, the shard of a memory was retrieved from some depth in his mind and somewhere in the distance he could hear Bill laugh.

He opened his eyes to the crash of thunder and a shout nearby. The kiss was torn asunder.

"Don't leave me," he whispered into the rising despair that was choking the Hogwarts grounds. "Never leave me."

Bill's eyes were shining with rain. "Don't leave _me."_ He caught one of Draco's hands and laced their fingers together. "We live."

 _Do we?_ Draco wanted to ask him, but he had learnt to never ask questions. Not when the Dark Lord set him on his path and not when he strayed from that path and found his way into the arms of another monster. Not once after his return to his terrible master had he asked a single question, afraid as he was that any unnecessary words would betray his heart.

Now this. At last.

Around them the world flashed green. Bill's hand was in his.

 **End**


End file.
